


impressions

by kittenscully



Series: fictober 2020 [15]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Episode: s07e17 All Things, if all things is not their first time then why does scully act the way that she does?, mentions of adultery, scully overthinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27030571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittenscully/pseuds/kittenscully
Summary: There’s something she wants to say, and she is writing the introductory paragraph, laying down the first strokes of the brush.[fictober day 15]
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: fictober 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949467
Comments: 4
Kudos: 61





	impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "You don't see it?"
> 
> Note: this fic presumes that their first time was months prior to All Things.

When he wakes up without her, Mulder doesn’t assume the worst. 

He knows her better than that, from the roots of her hair to the tips of her fingers, to the deepest reaches of her psyche, the parts that she never intended anyone to see. And she would never leave him. Especially not after months of being together, and especially not like this.

Pulling on his boxers and a t-shirt, he raps gently at the bathroom door, finds it empty. Then, he heads into the living room. The fishtank, the mugs of tea on the coffee table, the abandoned couch where he’d pulled her sleepily into his lap earlier, kissed her for hours and pronounced her long since forgiven for being cold with him. 

The digital clock on the VCR which had marked it around one A.M. when he’d carried her to bed and confessed he had never been angry in the first place, now marking it a little while before dawn.

And, to his left, light spilling out from the little dining area. He moves towards it, unsure of what to expect. 

He finds her at the table, fully dressed and funeral-somber, staring into space. 

Seating himself at a right angle from her, he turns his chair so they’re face to face. Scully is expressionless, almost alarmingly so, and he wishes selfishly for the ability to once again read her mind, even though she would hate him for it.

“Hey,” he says, leaning his forearm on the table. “What’s goin’ on?”

It’s too late, or perhaps too early, to speak louder than a murmur to another person. These are his hours, often finding the rest of the world asleep. To see her in them, solitary and clothed rather than asleep on his chest, feels like a dream, a state of altered reality. 

“I’ve been thinking,” she says. 

It doesn’t sound like a response, more like a statement in itself. As if she’s been waiting to tell him. 

“Thinking about what?”

“Myself.” She is stiff, save for the movement of her lips. Statuesque, a still life under soft light. “The things that have happened, and ways that they could’ve happened instead.” 

She turns to look at him, then, and he sees the crack in the foundation, chipped paint, the vulnerability in her eyes. 

“What I would’ve done differently, and what I would’ve done exactly the same.”

There’s something she wants to say, and she is writing the introductory paragraph, laying down the first strokes of the brush. He almost thinks that she is letting him down gently, and then he pushes the idea away. Reminds himself that she would never leave him. 

“Scully,” he says, gently. “I’m gonna need a little more information than that.” 

At this, she moves, finally, shifting to rest her arms on the wood. There’s a sadness in her posture, a deep regret. Guilt, he thinks. 

“I’m not a good person, Mulder,” she tells him, swallowing. “Or at least, not good enough.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He wants to remain calm, but defensiveness kicks in on her behalf almost immediately. “Of course you are, Scully. You’re the best person I know. You’re –”

“No,” she cuts him off, more firmly, casting him back into trancelike silence. “I am many things, Mulder, but a good person is not one of them. I’m a scientist, a doctor, a federal agent. I’m a murderer, in cold blood. I’m a slipping Catholic, and a believer in so many things that I pretend not to believe in any of them.”

There’s a pause, and she looks down at her hands, clasped together before her. All of this, he knows, and he loves her in spite of and because of it. 

“And I’m selfish, horribly selfish. That’s the trait, I think, that makes me a homewrecker.” 

“But you’re not a homewrecker,” Mulder points out, prickling. “You left as soon as you knew.” 

They’d gone over this, see, the night before. She’d told her story, about Waterston and his family, the way that he had seduced her with his wedding ring tucked away in his desk. About being taken advantage of by an older man, even though she still doesn’t see it that way, and then cutting ties and fleeing the state once she learned what was really going on.

“But I am, Mulder,” she says, shaking her head. “Maybe not then, not with Waterston, but I _am_.”

He stares at her, trying to puzzle out the frown lines between her brows, the anxious whitening of her knuckles. Weighed down with sleep, he can’t put together what she could mean.

“You may not know the Bible, Mulder, but I do.” The distance in her eyes is uncanny, unsettling. “‘All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person’. The sin is not in the doing of the thing, but in the fact that we would do it, if the circumstances were right.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Scully,” he argues, too subdued by the hour to get genuinely frustrated. “Since when do you care about what the Bible claims is a sin?” 

“Willfully destroying a relationship, destroying a family, out of selfish desires,” Scully says. “Those things are harmful, Mulder, regardless of whether they’re labeled sins or not.”

“But you didn’t destroy a family,” Mulder replies, leaning in. “Waterston destroyed his own family. Wasn’t that the entire point? Wasn’t that what you explained to his daughter?”

“I told you, this isn’t about Waterston.”

“Then tell me what it’s about,” he implores her. “Because right now, Scully, you’re not making a whole lot of sense.”

There’s a soft sigh, and Scully rubs at her temples. In the dim light, she seems near to glowing, pale skin and the sleepy corners of her eyes. A figure that might walk through his dreams, secretive and beautiful, always just out of arm’s reach. 

“I left once I realized that Waterston had made me a homewrecker,” she says, finally. “I didn’t stay. If I’d known, I never would’ve let him have me in the first place.”

“Right,” Mulder agrees. “That’s what I’ve been saying, that’s why none of this makes any sense.”

“God, you don’t see it, do you?” 

“See _what_ , Scully?”

She finally meets his gaze, eyes frightened, her mouth trembling. Lagging with sleep and laden with surreality, he imagines that when she opens it, there will be a flutter of nervous wings, butterflies rising to gather on the ceiling. 

“I would’ve stayed, Mulder,” she says, and instead, the words come out with a rush of air, uncolored and unadorned. “If it had been you, I would’ve stayed.” 

“Scully,” he starts, still confused, but she shakes her head, and he quiets to let her finish.

“If you had been married all these years, if… if Diana hadn’t left.” She speaks in monotone, her attempt at composure betrayed by the glossiness of her eyes. “I wouldn’t have done anything differently.” 

Mulder opens his mouth, and then closes it again. The situation she’s describing is so distant, so hypothetical, that he can’t quite put the pieces together.

“If you were married to her right now, Mulder,” Scully says, her gaze dead set on his. “I would still let you have me. I would share your bed while you wore your damned wedding ring. And I would destroy your marriage to take you for myself.” 

He inhales slowly, and realizes what she’s saying all at once, like taking a step back from a painting and suddenly seeing an image where there had only been swaths of color before. 

“I would be yours,” she whispers, and there’s a tear on her lashes, pure and bright as crystal. “Just as I am now.”

And although he is slow, still, gathering his thoughts, he reaches for her anyway. Settles her small, cold hand between both of his, holds on when she tries to jerk away.

“Scully,” he says, softly, pressing his thumb into her palm. “Why does any of that matter?”

“How could it not, Mulder?” She isn’t moderating her tone anymore, too shaky and desperate. “I’m a bad person. If you’d had a family when we met, I would’ve destroyed it. If Diana had been your wife, I would’ve stolen you away.” 

“But she wasn’t, Scully,” he tells her. Scoots his chair closer. “She wasn’t my wife. And I didn’t have a family.”

“But I wouldn’t have cared if you did,” she insists, louder now, and the dreamy haze starts to collapse in on itself. “And that’s wrong. I’m wrong, and I’m selfish, and I would never be able to resist having you for myself, even if it meant ruining your life.”

“Scully,” he says, pitching his voice lower, gentler.

The animal terror is evident in her eyes, and he wonders if she ever fell back to sleep tonight, or if she’s been up for hours, turning these thoughts over and over in her head. The thought makes his chest ache, forces him vividly, painfully awake. 

“You should hate me,” Scully says, panicked, the words coming out all at once. “Mulder, you should hate me.” 

And he doesn’t know how to explain it, how to communicate that the force of her loving him could never feel wrong, even if it turned ruinous. How he isn’t surprised in the slightest to hear any of this, or even remotely upset. 

“Well, that’s too bad,” he tells her, firmly. “Because I don’t hate you.”

And it’s all too much, her wobbly chin, her fingers digging into his skin, her hunched shoulders ready to make a break for it. Mulder is rising to his feet before he can help it, pulling her up after him and drawing her into his chest right as she finally breaks.

“Oh, honey,” he sighs, feeling the tears start to form in his own eyes. 

Wrapped up in his arms, she’s so tiny, her frame shuddering with silent sobs. The fabric of his shirt is soaked through in moments, and her arms wind so tightly around his waist that he won’t be surprised if his sides are bruised after. 

He palms the back of her head, strokes through her hair tenderly and whispers to her. “It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay.” 

She only cries harder. 

“I could never hate you,” he tells her, pressing his lips to the crown of her head. “Never, Scully, you hear me?”

He feels her nod, squeeze him tighter, and he blinks back tears. 

Even with all her deep rationality, the things that make Scully fall apart are always the opposite of the things that she holds dear. Impressions, based on assumption and feeling, deep set and utterly separate from reality, with evidence fabricated in the echo chamber of her own mind. For so long, he’d thought of her as infallibly reasonable, but now, he suspects her of internalized self hatred nearly as bad as his own. 

And just as she loves him, utterly dismissive of the flaws he thinks are fatal, he loves her. 

She heaves against him, face buried in his chest, and he wants to wipe her clean, tears scattered on his palms and insecurity washed away like paint on his fingers. 

“You know, Scully,” he tells her, once she starts to calm. “I wouldn’t have done anything differently either, if one of us was married.”

There’s a sniffle, and she looks up at him in surprise, eyes red and puffy, grip loosening a little. 

“And maybe that makes me a bad person, or a homewrecker, or whatever you want to call it,” he continues, smoothing hair out of her face. “But I don’t care what kind of person I am, as long as I’m someone that you can figure out how to love.” 

Scully’s lower lip trembles, and she catches it with her teeth, keeps staring up at him with that deep, implicit trust that strikes him to the bone. 

“I don’t care what kind of person you think that you are, Dana,” he says steadily, using her first name to make sure she hears him and watching her eyes widen a little in response. “I love you regardless. And I want you around just the same.” 

He doesn’t know if she believes him yet, but he knows that he’ll be able to convince her if she gives him enough of a chance. And when she lets out a tremulous little sigh, pressing her face back into his chest, he takes it as a sign that she will. 

“‘M sorry,” she mumbles, muffled by his shirt. 

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he tells her, smoothing his hand across her spine. 

“Wasn’t gonna leave, you know,” she sniffs, leaning back to look up at him. “I wouldn’t do that, not unless you told me to.”

“I know.” He bends to kiss her forehead. He would never tell her to, especially not after months of being together. Especially not because of something like this. “I know, honey.”


End file.
